It's a weird world
by bhut
Summary: Mid-S2 AU. Raina runs into Grant after Skye shot him and decides to take him to the temple too. Things get weird and shuffled after this.
1. Chapter 1

**It's a weird world (part 1)**

 _Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Marvel™._

The pitter-patter of delicate, feminine feet caused Grant Ward to rise from his stupor, caused by blood loss. "Ah, Raina. It's you, witch," he neutrally told the Afro-American woman, as she rushed by holding Whitehall's glowing obelisk in her hands. "Whose lives have you messed up today?"

Raina chuckled. She remembered Grant from the time that John Garrett was still alive. She had handled him easy back then, and she could handle him just as easily now – not that she needed to. Odds are, S.H.I.E.L.D. was going to capture and execute him – or Hydra would – any minute now, or perhaps he would die from blood loss on his own. Still, she could not resist kicking him while he was down – she was that sort of a girl, after all.

"I," she spoke, half tartly and half proudly, "am on my way to embrace my destiny! The Diviner, the Obelisk, it will at last give me the glorious future that I seek!"

Ward looked at her, even as he rose into a halfway standing position. "What future? Please! Raina, speaking as a monster to a witch, you have no future for you have no present or past. Skye now, also had no past, but she has friends on her side, she has a present and a future – in S.H.I.E.L.D. You have none of that, and the glowing pyramid, obelisk, column, whatever – it will not change things any. You have just jealousy of Skye. She is the one with the destiny. I'm not."

Once more, for an uncountable time her life, Raina felt tears start to accumulate in her eyes. Damn it, she had succeeded at last! She gotten the Diviner, she was about to become glorious and great and powerful (she was already beautiful, after all), a mere man like Grant Ward should be at her feet already, not looking down on her (and not just literally), with a look of pity mixed with amusement on her face. She had put it behind her, damn it!

"You're wrong," she hissed, doing her best not to cry – this was her day of triumph. "Once I go through the rite and acquire my power you will bow before me!"

Now Grant's face lost any amusement and became dead serious – emphasis on dead. "Never," he said simply. "I did that for John, let's be honest here, but he's dead and gone. You and your potion – you killed the man, leaving behind a thing to inhabit his dead body. Maybe the Obelisk will make you strong enough to kill me, maybe I will die anyways, but I will not bow to you. Neither will Coulson, for all of his faults, or May, let alone Skye. You've reached the end of your road, witch, and all you have acquired there is jealousy." Grant snorted; it was not a very happy sound. "Now _I_ , let's be honest, has done more bad things than good, things that I will regret, but you know? I lived. I have done things. I fought for and against both S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra. Few others have done this. People will remember me for this – at least for a while, for better or for worse. That is what _I_ have acquired. What about you?"

"I?" Raina took a deep breath. "I? I..." she trailed away. "I have done nothing grand, nothing special. I – was a con artist, then I met Cal, who taught me everything I know, who introduced me to Garrett and you – remember? – who... who doesn't care at all about me, but just about his wife and daughter, Daisy, who you know as Skye... She does have everything, I got nothing but my – my jealousy, and my hope that things will be different, will be better after I go through terrigenesis. Why did you take it away from me?" Now she did feel like weeping.

"Because," Grant exhaled, "because I'm not a good man – I admit. John, Garrett, he trained me to be a monster, and so you were not wrong when you called me one. Skye, she is not one, but it does not matter – I forgive you for calling her a monster too. I – also apologize for mocking you. A new life does sound like a very good thing. Perhaps this glowing obelisk will give me one too? What do you think?"

Raina stared at the man as if he suddenly sprouted a second head or something along those lines _without_ the Obelisk's power. "...No one ever apologized to me before," she spoke finally. "Not even Cal, not even your cohorts at the agency. Perhaps the Diviner can give you a new life. But more likely it'll kill you."

"Then Coulson and the rest of his team can use my petrified corpse for target practice, or as a coat rack, or whatever," Grant shrugged, as he began to usher Raina in her initial direction, while leaning on her – slightly. (Which was good, because he was heavy, and she – not so strong.) "I lived a very...exciting life, I'm not afraid of death. In part because I suspect that between my parents, the schools they sent me to, S.H.I.E.L.D., Hydra and etc., Hell will be no challenge at all. Why, me and John used to joke that when one of us will go down under, he will wait for the other, and together we'll bust out of it-"

"You're such a man," Raina said, feeling very strange on the inside. Someone was sharing a joke with her. No one had shared a joke with her before – not even Cal. (But then again, Cal's sense of humour was something else, and in such a bad way that Raina actually _did not_ want a piece of it.)

Together now, Grant and Raina began to descend into the alien temple.

 _TBC_


	2. Chapter 2

**It's a weird world (part 2)**

 _Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Marvel™._

The slowly moving, and somewhat mismatched, (not to mention unhappy) pair ran into Skye soon enough. Or perhaps she ran into them – between the Hydra property aboveground, and the alien ship/building/etc below, the place was something of a labyrinth, and Skye did not get the grip of this sort of situation just yet.

"Oh, it's you as well," the hacktivist turned agent told her ex, with more than slight unhappiness and bitterness. "You just don't get the message-"

"I have," Grant's face was its' most robotic. "You don't love me. Maybe I deserve it. Maybe the Obelisk will just kill me and you will use my petrified remains as a coat rack or whatever. But maybe it will give me a new life of my own, you know? That is worth taking a risk." He paused and added, somberly. "You, on the other hand, you probably have a new life so to speak – in S.H.I.E.L.D. Maybe you should sit this one out."

Skye blinked and looked at Raina. "Don't look at me," the Afro-American woman shrugged. "I still think that you have a destiny ahead of you, so am I. But the idea of a new life? This doesn't sound so bad either, and to be frank, Skye, Mary-Sue, Daisy Johnson? I am not your friend, and I do not think that we will be. Are you coming? This is not a reverse psychology thing."

Skye blinked. This was probably the longest and the most coherent thing that Raina had ever told her, and if one subtracted all the rumblings about the Obelisk and its power...yeah, you were probably left with this particular speech, period.

Skye was intelligent. She was brave and resourceful. She was trained by Grant and by Melinda May. By now, she had seen and experienced many unbelievable things. Normally, she would be on top of the situation, or getting there, but-

But she still had not forgotten the times from the orphanage, when her friends got adopted and moved on, leaving her behind. To be frank, this was probably her greatest fear – that she will be left behind by Coulson and the rest of her new family, and as she looked at Grant and Raina walking past her into the gloom, the suspicion or the realization that this was what happening here, spiked up in her once more.

Almost cursing herself for her stupidity, Skye followed the other two people downwards.

/

Antoine Trip was lost. Flat out lost. It was embarrassing – he was the grandson of a Howling commando – but lost he was, with no one in sight. Right now, though he would not admit it, he would be even happy to see a Hydra agent around – loneliness needed company and all...

As Trip turned around a bend, he saw...no, not the Minotaur, thank God for small mercies, but several people moving in a determined direction, as if they knew where they were going. True, one of them was hurt, so another one was helping him walk (the wounded person looked just too big to be a woman) but they were still moving in a way that implied that they knew where they were going. Since Trip didn't, this put one over him, and since he already decided that even Hydra would be better than solitude and abandonment, he followed them.

Well, rather, he tried to catch up to them, because hurt or not, they were quite ahead of him, and in this dim, uncertain, flickering light it was easy to get lost: the corridors weren't too twisted, but there was too many of them, so Trip was sort dizzy. Still, now that he had some idea of where he was going, he picked his speed, he fingered his firearm, he turned around another bend, and ran into a round, circular room, where was movement, as columns and shelves of stone twisted around, forming some sort of a solid circumference of something (Trip was not as big on circumferences and co. as the FitzSimmons were), sealing several people within their circle – Trip just wasn't sure how many: one, two, or more. Instead, he was distracted, as he saw someone else – a bigger someone else than him – move in the same chamber. He turned around and broke into a grin. "Mack! Glad to see you!"

Mack did not reply to his friend's greeting, and now, even in the failing light, Trip could see that something was very wrong with his friend, something that probably was not even Hydra. "Mack?" he pressed the big man, metaphorically speaking. "Are you ok?"

Instead of replying, Mack swung on him. This was not Mackenzie's usual fighting style, the man was not a fighter the way May or Trip himself were, but he still was better than this.

"All right, Mack," Trip told his friend, even though the latter may not have been able to hear him. "I don't want to hurt you – but I will have no regrets fighting whatever thing that is in charge of you."

And he began to fight back.

 _TBC_


	3. Chapter 3

**It's a weird world (part 3)**

 _Disclaimer: see previous chapters._

As the stone crawled up him, up his body. Grant Ward felt his blood turn to fire. The wounds that Skye caused him were bad, they were like a knot of fire that was burning, burning, in a stinging nettle sort of way, driving Grant insane, for he couldn't do anything about it, for the stone was all over him now, and he couldn't move, but that was comparatively okay, when compared to what was going on in his head, in his skull, in his forehead.

 _Flash!_

 _John and Sunil Bakshi were looking down on him, with similarly disdainful expressions on their faces – they were both Hydra._

 _Flash!_

Grant... he did not want to go that route, he did not...and he did not have to. He saw it clearly now, he had a moment of perfect clarity, perhaps the first one in his life. Yes, perhaps, he could be a good man, he wanted to be one, but he wanted to be a bad man instead.

No, no he did not. John, John he liked to hurt people – not to kill them, to hurt them. Grant, he never did. John was not a good man. Grant...he wanted to be like John, but he wanted to be a good man as well.

 _Flash!_

 _John and Sunil Bakshi were looking down on him, with similarly disdainful expressions on their faces – they were both Hydra._

" _He is a strong one, a resilient one – pity that he got some sort of moral values intact," John told Bakshi, and – Whitehall? What he doing_ here? Grant knew what, actually.

" _Then let's begin the operation."_

 _Flash!_

Grant Ward, he knew what sort of man John was. He wanted to be a good man. He followed him anyways. He did not care. Caring was a weakness. Feelings were a weakness. The Obelisk could take away this weakness, he could make Grant perfect-

No. Grant did not care. He was keeping his feelings, weakness or no. He was tired of just killing, long before the Bus. He wanted – he wanted to be a person, a good one, maybe even an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

He would disappoint John-

Grant's debt, however great, to John was paid. One lifetime was enough to cover any debt, and it was covered.

" **Good-bye, John."**

There was a sound in the chamber, not unlike that of manacles breaking...

/

As stone crawled up her, up her body, Skye felt cold, maybe even hollow. Actually, it was a further development from her last run-in with Grant (and Raina) in this abandoned alien temple of a labyrinth, when Grant ignored her.

It hurt. He was the traitor and she was hurt. She thought that he loved her, that he chose her, that he wanted her.

 _Flash!_

 _Grant looked at her from his cell – it was as if the sun had risen in his world._

 _Flash!_

 _Grant looked at her in the corridor – it was back for him to being a robot-_

 _Flash!_

 _Only there was something in his eyes, something familiar, something that Skye knew well about – dejection._

 _Flash!_

 _Miles' eyes, as S.H.I.E.L.D. dropped him off in Hong Kong or wherever._

 _Flash!_

 _Grant's eyes._

 _Flash!_

 _Skye's own eyes, when yet another family chose someone else, someone but her._

 _Flash!_

Rejection. Dejection. Skye did not want it, Skye did not want to be out in the cold; she wanted to **belong** , to be a part of a family, a group. Love? Skye did not know what it was, she was afraid of it, she wanted – she did not know what she wanted.

She did. She wanted family, she wanted warmth, and she wanted – love. She was afraid of the cost of love, she was afraid of loneliness; she knew loneliness, as an old, old friend. She knew where she stood with it, she-

She still wanted family, friends. She just – could survive without them, especially once she found a van. It would be like a shell for a snail, without which she would be just a slug-

No, Skye was no slug; she was a person, and an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. She just – was not perfect, she was – human, with both good and bad in it. She could handle it. She just – would need help from the others with it, that is all.

There was a sound, not unlike that of dark cold waters receding...

/

As the stone crawled up her body, Raina wondered WTH was she doing here, anymore? Did she even belong here? She came, she travelled all her life to this point because, because-

Because she wanted to matter, to prove to someone, even if that 'someone' was Cal Zabo, The Doctor, that she was a person, and not just human-shaped placeholder in his life. She was herself, but what, who she wanted to be was Skye.

 _Flash!_

 _A crowd of people, bowing down to her feet, worshiping her._

 _Flash!_

 _Grant Ward, looking her straight in the eyes less than two hours ago, telling her that he will die first before he bows before her –_ and Raina believed him.

 _Flash!_

 _Raina was in her family's kitchen, in a flower-print dress, noticeably pregnant, was doing the cooking. A baby, with lighter skin than her own was lying in a crib not far from the kitchen. Raina's ankles were swollen, her face was puffy, but she was actually happy – happier than she had ever felt in life, even when she heard that the Diviner was finally found..._

 _Flash!_

Raina still wanted to matter; she just was not sure to whom. To many people or just too few. She still wanted to matter; she wanted to have a life. She wanted – a new start. Period. The Diviner's promise of power was tempting, still was, but now, now Raina had an idea how she would use it. Working with Hydra (anymore) did not figure in this idea.

'I want to be a person,' Raina admitted deep within her stone-cast mind. 'Please.'

There was a pause in the Diviner's chamber, and then the stone cocoons (for the lack of a more appropriate word) began to break apart.

 _TBC_


	4. Chapter 4

**It's a weird world (part 4)**

 _Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Marvel™._

The stone shells/cocoons/outer skins shattered, showering the small round chamber with impromptu shrapnel. Then, the chamber itself began to break apart, as the stone shelves and columns that had composed it began to move away from each other, to their original positions.

(Outside, Mack stopped fighting Trip and just stopped, falling as if his strings were cut – or something to that effect.)

Skye did not care about this. Her body ached all over; it was especially bad inside her head, where everything felt jumbled and broken up, like pieces of a wrong puzzle – or something similar. She wanted to rest, she want to sleep, she wanted – company, warmth, friends, maybe even love? She did not know about the last part, but she knew-

Skye looked around. There were other people in the same space to her, but they looked busy and one of them was hurt. She knew that she knew who they were. She could not distinguish them in the still-unstable light. She did not care. They looked intimate with each other. For some reason, that hurt. Skye did not want to hurt. She got onto her feet and moved into the bigger chamber. There were more people there, people whom she knew, people who were also hurt, people, whom-

"Daddy?!"

/

Grant Ward felt relief – on physical, literal level. The fire has abated, his pain was gone, and his mind was clearer than it ever was during the last 5 or so years. Silently, speechlessly, he stared at the various pieces of metal that had fallen out of his body due to the Obelisk's power. 4 of those were bullets that Skye had shot him with. The others, however...

"After the disaster in Siberia," he told Raina, who was sitting next to him, looking actually concerned on his behalf (weird, that?) "I told John that I would never walk for Hydra; I would bust him out of Hell if it was needed, but I would never work for Hydra. We did not _need_ Hydra! John agreed, he took me to the future CyberTek office, and there was the chair, and Bakshi, and Whitehall, and then there was _this_ ," he pointed to three combined platelets of technology, "in _my_ head." He twitched, as he imploded – he just wanted to curl into a knot and stay there for a while, even if 'here' was an alien temple of some sort. "I lied to Skye. God, I promised I would never lie to her and I lied. John...what had he done to himself and me? What?"

"I don't know, but you'll have the scars to prove it for quite some time," Raina was crouching next to him, rubbing his shoulders and almost cooing. "Plus you have the bits and pieces to remind you. And – I will help?"

"Why?" Grant opened one eye and looked at her, almost shyly, (especially for him).

"Because I want to matter," Raina said softly. "To do that I have to have other people in my life, starting with you. Yes, you have flaws, but I am no prize either; in fact, I was nothing, just a placeholder, until you – helped. Now, maybe I can learn how to help other people, and helping you will be a start."

Grant looked at her, still with just one eye, but there was more of his usual purpose in his gaze now. "Perhaps," he agreed, even as he slowly untangled himself, "but this isn't easy, not if you really care about this. John once called feelings a weakness. He was wrong – but for all the right reasons."

"Fascinating," Raina nodded. "Tell me more."

There were sounds of fighting from the outside; actually, the smaller chamber was mostly gone now, so the outside was just the part of the inside of the bigger chamber.

"Let's go and help," Grant said simply, as he took the metal pieces, put them into his pockets and got onto his feet in one smooth, continuous motion.

"All right," Raina was not feeling equally confident, but she complied – this was as good a starting point as any, after all.

/

Cal Zabo, also known as The Doctor, was not in a good mood. Whitehall was dead, he had not killed him, and now he seemed to be lost, too. This whole alien angle? It was more of Jia's thing, not his, and he-

Suddenly, he found himself in some new chamber. Some people were there already – was Raina one of them? – and there was Coulson (whom he really did not like), and there was his daughter, Daisy, looking as fresh and innocent as a, well, daisy (Cal was not exactly poetic – not for a long time now).

"Daddy?" his daughter spoke in a shaky tone of voice. Cal, naturally, moved forwards. So did Coulson – to intercept him. Cal saw red. Coulson possibly was the better fighter, but Cal was stronger than how he looked, and he did put a lot frustration into his punch, so Coulson flew backwards into the nearest wall and did not get back up.

"Cal? Leave." The voice was not familiar, but not so – Cal vaguely remembered it. It was one of the Hydra agents that had been associated with Coulson, with CyberTek, etc. That man raised his hackles in many ways, and Cal, he had to admit even to himself, he did not exactly want to fight him, so he grabbed his daughter and looked around. The woman known as Melinda May was blocking one of the exits, but the circular chamber had several; Cal grabbed his unresisting daughter by hand and together they ran...

...Grant (and Raina) emotionlessly watched the father-daughter pair retreat in the dark corridors, before turning back to Trip and Mackenzie. "How's he?" he asked Trip, since Mack was out of it, not unlike Coulson.

"I'm not talking to you," Trip gave the man a look. "Neither's agent May, I bet – see?"

"I see that this _isn't_ May," Grant shot back, but his heart was not in the argument (neither was Trip's, actually). "See?"

Now Trip _did_ see the scar on the woman's face, the awkward way she carried herself, very much unlike Melinda May – it was agent 33. He knew that he should do something, but he could not. His fight with Trip cost him this much, especially in terms of energy. He just relaxed himself, hoping that it would be over quick. It was not.

"Doctor Whitehall is dead," agent 33 spoke in that flawed, emotionless voice of hers. "You're the senior Hydra agent here, sir," she turns to Grant. "What are your orders?" Her voice is emotionless, mechanic now, but Grant can swear that he hears the misery in it – agent 33 is not enjoying this, brainwashing or no.

"You and Raina – take Coulson up and start moving to the surface. I and Trip will be after you with the other guy," Grant speaks. Maybe it is just him, but he does not even think about using this for Hydra's advantage, not anymore.

Trip turns and stares at his face for the first time since the old S.H.I.E.L.D. had fallen, and he and Garrett were exposed. "What happened to you?" he asks.

"The alien artefact. You?"

"Mack...but I suspect the alien artefact too," Trip's reply is careful, measured – Grant does not press him. "Let's get Mack upstairs," the other man finally continues. "God, what a mess this is!"

And Grant agrees.

 _TBC_


	5. Chapter 5

**It's a weird world (part 5)**

 _Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine. At all._

Melinda May was not having a good day. Not too surprisingly, Phil Coulson was behind it.

Ever since the fall of the old S.H.I.E.L.D., the two of them had become quite aware of just how behind Hydra their agency was, and so they worked tirelessly to build it back up, to close the gap. By and large it had worked, too, as S.H.I.E.L.D., their S.H.I.E.L.D., was catching up to Hydra, and now that Daniel Whitehall was gone for good, they were probably winning over it, too. But then...

But then there were the aliens, and for the obvious reasons Melinda did not think that it was the same situation with them, as it was with Hydra. The old S.H.I.E.L.D. was a direct heir to SSR, especially in attitude, and by now Melinda honestly could not say if this was a good or a bad thing. The old S.H.I.E.L.D.'s approach to anyone gifted (well, unusual) was fairly straightforward: they got them under control, period. Sometimes they would hire them, true, but usually having them report to some local S.H.I.E.L.D. agent on a regular basis was good enough. The gifted did not go against S.H.I.E.L.D., at least not before the battle of New York, but neither did they work for it, not really.

...And that was just homegrown, Earth-grown gifted people. The real, genuine aliens like the Asgardians and the dark elves were something else entirely, and Hydra gotten involved with one of their artifacts on top of it. And it was not some small artifact either – it seemed to be an entire building complex, on top of everything. How they were going to destroy it – Melinda hoped that the FitzSimmons would be able to do it...provided that the find Coulson first. And Skye. And Mack. And Trip-

"Here we are," the aforementioned Trip said quietly, yet Melinda almost smiled at his voice, because it meant that they were all ok... only they were not. Trip and Ward, (of all people) were helping Mackenzie get to the Bus. Raina and agent 33 were doing the same thing with director Coulson. And if agent 33 still looked like Melinda herself, Raina had changed, quite a bit, since they have come to Puerto Rico.

"What has happened?" she spoke, trying to sound like her regular self. Judging by Trip's level gaze, she was not sure if she had managed it.

"We took on the alien city-temple – and it won," Trip's own voice was level enough.

"And Skye?"

"The Doctor took her."

"The Doctor?"

"Her father, Cal," Grant interjected smoothly, yet with none of the superiority that was so typical of him, lately.

"Skye has a _father_? Skye has _parents_?" Melinda blinked, aware that she was behaving unlike herself, but still.

"Yes, Skye's father is alive, at least," Grant nodded. "He's the man who took her."

"You sure it was him? He is it? Her father?" Melinda continued to press. Maybe she was acting OOC, but she had a bad day, (though Phil's appeared to be even worse).

"Yes. Same hair, same eyes, same nose," Grant nodded placidly.

"Same intelligence, fast-paced mind, love of nicknames," Raina added smoothly, not unlike how Jemma used to finish sentences for Leo (and vice versa). "I checked the DNA, also, and they matched," she added, looking much shyer than she did in the fast, blinking in an innocent way that was not unlike Jemma's, again.

"...Ok," Melinda was beginning to suspect that all could be explained by a very simple idea: she ended up in some sort of an alternate universe, where nothing and no one made sense anymore, not even her. "Um, Trip?"

"Well, Coulson's been knocked unconscious – by purely physical means, so even we could revive him...I hope," Trip answered. "Mack, on the other hand? It was the alien city-temple that got him, not Hydra – I think, so I do not know what we can do, here. And agent 33-"

"Yes, that's Hydra, all right," Grant interjected once more, sounding...well, sounding like nothing as his Hydra-self used to sound. "Whitehall was very fond of brainwashing and not very fond of women _at all_."

"Right," Melinda gave up. She needed Coulson – he could make sense of things. "Trip-"

"We're on it," Trip nodded. "Women, Grant – let's get the rest of our team onto the Bus."

Strangely, neither the women nor Grant argued but wordlessly complied.

/

"So, Daisy," Cal rubbed his hands, nervously. "How are you? Again?" Then he mentally slapped himself at his less-than-witty opening line.

"My name is Skye," his daughter told him quietly – she was a lot more subdued than when the two of them were in Hydra's Puerto Rico base. "But maybe Daisy is fine too Where are we going?"

"Back to the States," Cal quickly shook his head. "I don't think that Puerto Rico is a good place for us to be, right now, especially since you're gifted...and so am I, actually. I suppose?"

"Is my mother there too? In the States?" Daisy continued to look at him in a somehow familiar gaze.

Cal opened his mouth and began to think, for real. Not that he had not done it before, he was quite intelligent, actually, but, truth to tell, for the last few years of his life he let his wife do that for him – she was very good with that sort of thing, after all, and initially he intended to tell her about their daughter immediately, but now...

But now things were different – not a lot, just a tiny, little bit. Maybe it was the fact that their Daisy seemed to be favoring _his_ side of the family rather than Jia's; maybe it was the fact that she was _his_ daughter too; Cal did not know, but he knew that as soon as Jia learned about her, it would be the end of any chance for him to spend any time with Daisy and, well, he wanted to spend some time with their daughter; she was his daughter, Jia can wait. For the first time in their marriage, Jia can wait.

"Are you ok, dad?" Daisy spoke, looking at Cal like his own mother used to look at him, when he was little and in trouble.

"Yes," Cal half-lied half-spoke the truth through his teeth. "It's just that the two of us will be hanging around for a while, Jia – your mother – she and I aren't living together anymore-"

"Because of me," Daisy said in a small voice. Cal's heart broke.

"No, because of Hydra. And possibly S.H.I.E.L.D., but let's not get into that, not now," Cal said quickly. "It's just that, um, my home's a mess-"

"That's ok, I'm messy too. I used to live in a van, you know?" Daisy said brightly with a tiny almost-smile.

"Fascinating!" Cal honestly did mean that – and then he heard something. "Hey, did you hear this? It's our cue to get off this boat."

"Ok, daddy," Daisy nodded reluctantly, but complied.

Silently, father and daughter got off their 'ride'.

 _TBC_


	6. Chapter 6

**It's a weird world (part 6)**

 _Disclaimer: see previous chapters._

Leo Fitz wasn't having a good day; it was actually quite bad...because of the weirdness.

Firstly, Grant was back. He was once more in one of the prison cells, sitting quietly...alongside Raina, who wasn't doing much resistance either. Leo had pointedly ignored him, (ok, _them_ ), but still, the fact that Grant was back, and he was _docile_ , and all, it wasn't right. Grant was never docile, he wasn't supposed to be docile, and he wasn't supposed to be sitting in a cell obediently, telling Raina (of all people; what _was_ she doing here?)...something or other in a soft tone of voice, while she stared at him as...

It hurt. It wasn't normal. Grant wasn't supposed to act like this, he never acted like this, he was Hydra, just as agent 33 was...um.

"How is she?" Jemma asked, indicating the agent in question.

"I could ask you first, about Coulson and Mack," Leo replied, not feeling very talkative at the moment.

"Well, Coulson is fine, he just had a minor concussion, he'll rest for a week or so and will be as good as new," Jemma gave her partner a strange look, yet continued gamely on. "Mack is...also fine, but there is something different with his DNA and all, I cannot quite grasp it, maybe Raina could advise?" she looked uncertainly at him.

Leo stared back. Honestly, whenever Raina came into their lives, she was either solely Hydra (she didn't have any objections working with Grant and Garrett, for one thing), or didn't seem to differentiate between Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D. The current opinion in S.H.I.E.L.D. was that she was either insane or following some other agenda, which wasn't even Hydra. Considering that they were still barely able to hold up with Hydra, Leo didn't really enjoy the possibility of there being yet another player in the game, whatever it was, and if Raina either knew all the rules, or just made them along, well...

"I don't know," he confessed to the other scientist. "I don't know if we can offer her anything that she is interested in, now that the whole Obelisk matter is closed, and forcing her to tell us anything...it feels wrong."

"Well, we forced Ward...though this is a different issue, I admit..."

"Well, no," Leo continued to confess to Jemma, "we didn't really force him to do anything...he cooperated with us, though mostly with Skye...I am thinking that May was right, we should've cut a proper deal with Grant to begin with..."

"Can't we do it now?" Jemma responded, reluctantly: she didn't really want to deal with their former friend and teammate either. "Only with Raina?"

"I don't know how to start, or when to start, and neither do you," Leo shook his head. "And I don't like the idea of _forcing_ anything out of anyone, especially someone so unpredictable as Raina. This just isn't S.H.I.E.L.D.'s way. We're supposed to be different from Hydra, in a better way."

"Speaking of Hydra-?" Jemma indicated agent 33, who was busy being deprogrammed by one of their machines.

"This is simple - relatively so," Leo confessed. "We're purging her from Whitehall's programming, and then we'll have to cure her face. We can do this by ourselves, with just someone insuring that she doesn't turn against us. Grant or Raina, however," he pointed to a screen and blinked: "Oh, May and Trip are already taking care of them. I guess this could work."

"Hah," Jemma blinked in thought - and then she firmly sat down in front of the monitor, and the two of them began to watch.

/

"Grant, Raina," Melinda spoke firmly, trying her best to sound as Coulson did at his most professional, even as she entered the cell, followed by Trip: the two of them could handle Grant, and Raina wasn't much of a fighter to begin with.

"How's the director?" Raina interrupted the older woman, mildly.

"-he'll the one asking questions..I mean, we do. Now," May twitched. "He'll be fine. Now," she almost grimaced, aware that she is repeating herself, "what do you two want?"

"Back in," Grant shrugged. "Well, for Raina it is the first time around, but the principle's the same. Beyond this, we got nothing. What does S.H.I.E.L.D. want?"

"You dare to think that after what you've done we'll take you back," Trip began as May tried not to lose her temper, but Grant wasn't finished:

"No, but you asked what I want, what we want, and you got your answer. Now what does S.H.I.E.L.D. want?" he interrupted the other man.

"We're flying blind here," Trip confessed, as it became clear that Melinda was letting _him_ do the talking. "Why are you helping us?"

"Because it's the right thing to do," Raina shrugged. "After the Diviner gave us clarity, things are different."

"Aha," Trip looked askance at the transformed woman. "And for how long?"

"Probably for the rest of our lives," Raina replied, as she withdrew her hand from Grant's pocket and produced some very damaged pieces of metal. "See?"

Trip frowned in thought. "I think we should go and talk to Fitz. In the lab," he admitted.

 _TBC_


	7. Chapter 7

**It's a weird world (part 7)**

 _Disclaimer: see previous chapters._

"And this is my bachelor pad," Cal said grandly, trying not to capitalize too much on the fact that he was telling this to his own daughter. "How you, uh, like it?"

"It's nice," Skye replied as she looked around with genuine curiosity. "It reminds me of my van. You don't care much for cleanliness either, do you?"

"Eh, he-he," Cal looked embarassed here. "It's something of a family thing, here. You, me, your grandma and grandpa - we were always messier than your mother's side of the family, it seems."

"Will I meet them?" The question was quite reasonable, but Cal had to take a few minutes to take it in.

"Well, you'll meet your mother, eventually," he confessed, "but my parents, Daisy, they've been gone for a while. Your mother's side of the family...I don't know. She is...a bit more high-maintenance, very proud of her family, but she is a wonderful person," he added, belatedly. "I just want to get to know you first. Your mother...um, she is a wonderful person, but she and I...we've been estranged lately. From each other," he finished, rather weakly.

"It's not because of _me_ , is it?" Skye didn't sound much better than her father did. "It's ok; I've been in broken families before; I can handle it. S.H.I.E.L.D., Coulson and Fury and others, they meant well, but they had forgotten that _scheming_ , and _compartmentalization_ , and all that - it isn't for everyone, not always."

"What did they do?" Cal asked, doing a herculean effort to keep calm and not lose his temper in front of his daughter.

"Just did their best to ensure that I don't form any attachments before they were ready to pick me up," Skye shrugged. "But, you know? It was my call in the long run. If I went and joined, say, some sort of a _respectable_ position, maybe in one of those big companies like Roxxon, and went to live a normal, 24/7 job, complete with a family of my own, I think the odds of them _not_ getting involved with me so intensly would be quite good."

"So why didn't you?" Cal asked quietly.

"I don't know," Skye admitted. "This alien obelisk - it showed me that I'm _not_ exactly the person that I thought I was; the S.H.I.E.L.D., they tried to become my family, and maybe if I hadn't go down, it would've worked. Now, I, I'm not sure where to go from here, anymore. I was looking for my family, and I found you now, or you found me, whatever is more correct. For once in my life, I am out of ideas as to where to go now."

"And normally you weren't?" Cal asked quietly.

"I used to live in a van," Skye said with a hint of her old dryness and sarcasm. "Going wasn't the problem, staying was. And you? Do you like staying or going?"

Cal genuinely gave it some thought. "I do like to travel," he finally came to a conclusion. "I initially met your mother because I came to China as a part of a relief program. You must understand, Daisy, that in those days travelling out of the States wasn't as easy as it is now."

Skye blinked. "Daisy?" she asked.

"Yes, that's your name," Cal nodded solemnly. (A normal person might've gotten worried how quickly Skye was jumping topics; for Cal it was absolutely normal and sensible, on the other hand, and he had no problem following his girl.) "Don't you remember?"

"I believe that you mentioned it, some, while we were captive at Whitehall's," Skye confessed, "but as I said before, I'm not sure of a lot of things these days. So, about mother?"

"Her name is Jia - but please, when you meet her, call her Jiaying, unless she tells you otherwise," Cal confessed. "She is a wonderful woman, Daisy, but she isn't like us. She's quite proper, you know, and self-controlled."

"Then why did you like her, in the first place? Not that I'm complaining, it's just that it sounds like the two of you have nothing in common-"

"This wasn't so, this wasn't always so," Cal said bitterly, as he himself was somewhat down the memory lane trip, revisiting both the happier and the sadder times. "Besides, kiddo, don't you know? If you really love someone, you tend to overlook their faults and differences."

"Yes, well, I never was in a relationship - not a real one, as you and mom have," Skye replied, sadly. "I cannot really relate."

"Oh! Well, when I take you to see your mom, maybe we can meet and match you up with someone at her place?" Cal said brightly.

"Um," Skye wanted to reply that she didn't want to be matched-up with anyone, when her stomach growled instead, from hunger: her last full meal had been from _before_ the whole Puerto Rico adventure, after all. "Can we have a meal, instead?"

"Sure!" Cal said, still sounding cheerful. "You want to go to McDonald's?"

"How about anywhere but there? Not only its' food is unhealthy, it also tastes bad," Skye countered.

"Hm. How about some pizza and poppers instead, then?"

"Now you're talking!" Skye said cheerfully.

Cal smiled back: he and his daughter were bonding! Yay!

/

Leo stared at Grant; the bigger man stared back.

"So," the scientist said simply, as he switched his attention back to the aged pieces of metal on the table, "you want to tell me how you got rid of the variant neural clamp, here?"

"It was the obelisk, or the diviner, or whatever it is called," Grant shrugged. "I'm sure that it pushed it out, or pulled it out, or whatever. Alien technology beats Hydra's, I guess."

Leo stared at Grant some more, this time joined by Jemma. "You don't really know what a neural clamp _is_ , do you?" the male scientist continued. "Yes, your scars look old, but the thing is? A neural clamp cannot be removed, not really, not without destroying a good deal of the subject's neural system in process, you know?"

"If your point is that I got _really_ lucky, then I follow you," Grant shook his head, staring back at the FitzSimmons. "Otherwise, I got nothing."

The FitzSimmons dropped, especially Leo. "How did you get it out and remained sane, not a vegetable?"

"I told you - the obelisk got it out," Grant patiently repeated himself. "The catch...the catch is that this clamp was kind of compatible with the alien tool, actually, and I think that it could've integrated the clamp into me instead, transforming into something far worse than what I had already become."

"And this is supposed to convince us that you're a good man?" Leo muttered bitterly, looking at the remains of the metal hardware in question harshly, as if it was what had betrayed them.

"No," Grant shook his head. "I don't know what I'm trying to convince you of, I just, I don't know, need help?"

"Yeah, you do," Leo agreed, still not sounding very happy. "Jemma... Jemma. Are you ok yourself?"

"Yes, it is just that this looks familiar somehow," Jemma tore her gaze away from the metal works.

"Well, you've been working for Whitehall, undercover, before," Raina finally joined the discussion, while watching, cautiously, the younger woman. "Maybe you've seen something like this down there?"

"...Maybe," Jemma didn't sound very convinced. Or happy, for that matter. "This isn't exactly just about this. Rather, it is just that first we got agent 33, whose mental landscape probably looks very, very desolate, and now we got Grant, who used to walk about with a neural clamp in his brain, and-"

Quiet weeping broke Jemma, even as the British agent was picking up her speech.

"I think that you managed to achieve some sort of a breakthrough with agent 33," Trip said gently...as he stated the obvious, since the FitzSimmons hurried to check up on the scarred woman.

 _TBC_


	8. Chapter 8

**It's a weird world (part 8)**

 _Disclaimer: see previous chapters._

Cal's idea of pizza, and poppers, involved something spicy, or even with jalapenos, as Skye nodded idly, while the two of them ate their meal in peace. Personally, she herself was more of a Hawaiian fan, when it came to pizza (she had some definite ideas about junk food, thank you very much, no matter what agent May would say), but, well, her father was a guy, (to state the obvious), and so obviously his tastes were somewhat more manly (though the cheddar-jalapeno sauce with his share of the fries was pushing it). Overall, this was actually a nice, family meal, something Skye _didn't_ have back in S.H.I.E.L.D.

S.H.I.E.L.D. ... Skye still didn't know what to do about them, metaphorically speaking. Months ago, when Hydra came out of the shadows, taking John Garrett and Grant with them, Skye knew that she was going to stick with Coulson and his team, no matter what - but this was then. Now things were different. Grant decided to take leave from her life... and, well, shooting him 4 times was supposed to do just that, but somehow things got turned around, and Skye was having regrets of some sort towards him on one hand, and on the other - feeling more ambiguous towards S.H.I.E.L.D. in general as well as towards Coulson and May in particular. They (and Grant, and the FitzSimmons) took Skye off the streets (and out of her van, **cough** ), gave her a place to belong, but...after ensuring that she wouldn't belong somewhere else. And if she had 'proven' herself to be less amenable to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s values and tactics and etc., then who knows? Maybe she would've found herself right back in some alley, possibly in her van, possibly - employed by some reputable agency, and without any memories of Coulson and the team whatsoever: who knew? S.H.I.E.L.D. made her feel welcome, but because of their own reasons, not hers. And hers...

Her reasons for getting involved with S.H.I.E.L.D. were straightforward - to find her family. And she did. Only it wasn't because of S.H.I.E.L.D., but rather to the contrary to their best interests; the only one who cared about this, in the end, besides her, was Ward; and now he was gone too, and Skye...had come to a realization that she didn't know who she was, what she wanted, anymore.

"What are you thinking about, Daisy?" Cal asked quietly: apparently, Skye wasn't as in control of her emotions as she thought. "That we should've gotten Hawaiian instead? Maybe, but pineapple and pizza just aren't the right sort of mix."

"No," Skye shook her head. "S.H.I.E.L.D., they picked me up, they saved me, they gave me a place to belong, but it was a place and rescue of their own choosing, so yeah, it's confusing, and not in a good way. I...they...they gave me a place to belong, but because I was an 0-8-4, at least initially. I...they...they are a good people, but ever since the obelisk, I'm not sure at all if they're _my_ people. Cal, what _is_ the obelisk or whatever it is called?"

"It is called the Diviner, and it is a part of your birthright," Cal's own voice dropped. "It is a very powerful tool, but it is only that - a tool. It can only bring out the best in you, not add something new. If you have doubts, they're _your_ doubts, and not something given out by the Diviner."

"Yes, this makes sense," Skye muttered crossly. Until Hydra came out, all of her team did their best to make her feel welcome - except for Ward. It was only when the truth came out, then Ward turned into be a liar, and-

Skye shook her head. She _did not_ need to think about Ward at this moment - she had too much on her plate already. "Who's the tough guy in dark glasses who has just come into here and heading towards us with a scowl?" she muttered quietly to Cal. "You don't owe money to the Mob, do you?"

"If only," Cal's own mood became sour immediately. "This is Gordo - hello, Gordo! Long time no see! Why are you here? Is it the time of the month?"

The man called 'Gordo' (Gordon?) gave Cal a very unamushed look. "Where's Raina?" he asked the man without any friendliness in his voice.

"Gone to pastures new, I suppose," Cal replied with an attempt at flippancy. "Problem?"

The man didn't back down. "Is she one of us?" he continued to prob Cal.

"Yes," Cal also got up to his feet. "Finally fancy a fight in public, eh Gordo?"

The man's expression didn't change - he was still unamused by Cal's actions. "I'll see you around, _Cal_ ," he told the older man flatly and left.

"When you told me that I might meet someone at my mother's place," Skye began quietly, "you weren't talking about _this_ guy, were you?"

"God forbid!" Cal spat, his family similarities to Skye quite evident at the moment between the two of them. "This is, that was Gordo. He works for Jia - your mother. He...isn't the worst guy, I suppose, but if you don't like him, I won't hold it against him. Let's get back to _our_ place, shall we?"

"We're going to move now, aren't we?" Skye understood the hint better than Cal expected her to. "What's our new destination?"

Cal told her.

/

...As a matter of fact, Coulson had been aware of his surroundings for several hours now, but didn't object to lying down, at least for a while. Being the director was busy work, even busier than his old job - S.H.I.E.L.D.'s _field_ director, so Coulson took the advantage of being stuck in an impromptu vacation, at least for a few hours. His head, and especially his face, felt numb, but not too much so, in fact there was some feeling coming back to it, so-

"Th-th-thank you-u-u f-f-for m-making me f-feel h-h-human once more," a strange female voice stuttered from somewhere to his left. "Th-th-thank you-u-u..."

"No problem, agent 33," Jemma's voice sounded purposefully perky from the same direction. "We don't, uh, know-"

"I-I h-have a n-name," the stranger stuttered, but with less tears than before. "I-It's Kara. Kara Lynn. K-Kara L-Lynn P-Pal-amas. I don't know who I am, but I know my name, yes-s-s. N-No n-numbers, pl-ease."

"Ok, agent Palamas. No numbers, we promise," Fitz apparently had joined Simmons in the medical wing. "Do you remember anything or anyone else?"

"I remember the big man over there. He told Whitehall that he was willing to work for him, and then he muttered beneath the breath that when it is over, he'll kill the doctor. I remember him not blasting you out of the sky - Whitehall had to override his orders personally..."

"Your stutter's gone," Ward spoke nonchalantly, as if he belonged here and not in some cell. Then again, some of Coulson's last memories of the younger man didn't quite make sense...

"R-Really?" Kara Lynn began to stutter once more. "W-Where am I? I-Is this S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

"Yes," Trip nodded. "Um, yeah, Jemma?"

"Yes?"

"What's the report on her?"

"Um. She is right here, you know," Jemma sounded half-flustered and half-annoyed, "and she... isn't fully out of the woods yet. She has been abused, you know, she needs to recover, physically and mentally. Great place you've been working for, _Ward_."

"I know, I made some...big mistakes," Grant didn't even try to deny this, unlike how it was when he was back in the vault D, "so how do I begin to fix them? Also, how do we help Ms. Kara? She isn't a part of this mess, except by being a S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent."

"Um," Jemma was caught flat-footed: ever since the Hydra uprising, they got unused to the original, no-nonsense version of Ward. "This is actually easy - the physical part, that is. The memories and all, this will be dicier - what?"

"The director's awake," Trip sounded more or less like his usual, happy self. More or less being the key words here.

"Oh! Sir, how are you?" Jemma appeared on top of Coulson's line of sight.

"Jus' fine," Coulson grunted. His speech was still slurred, apparently. "Wha't happened?"

"Cal - he's Skye's father, apparently - he gave you a concussion," Jemma explained. "But you've recovered nicely."

"Grant?" Coulson continued to question, somehow managing to sound like May in the process. (Not a regular thing for him, actually.)

"Had been neurally clamped for the last several years, and got free from it only due to the obelisk's control, and because...he may be messed up in his brain, but instinctively, he knows right from wrong," Jemma misinterpreted the question on purpose or not. "He will still be after observations - alien technology or not, this sort of mental scarring will take _years_ to heal. Right now, we're examining him for any other pieces of foreign tech - ours, Hydra, alien, anything else, though we're not so sure about the alien part..."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, the alien city-temple? It had brainwashed Mack, but you remember, you fought him together with Trip-"

"Trip?" Coulson managed to say.

"Yeah, no," the younger man admitted. "The director came up when it was almost over, and besides, it wasn't really a fight - Mack may not have been himself, but it was still him, sort of, so I just kind of stayed out of his possessor's reach, and that's it. Jemma, I'm a specialist, like May, like Grant. I don't so much fight as kill. If I really went at it, Mack would've been dead by now, and this would be worse."

"Trip has fed up being just a specialist - a killer," Ward spoke up from his position, wherever it was. (Coulson couldn't see it - couldn't see _him_.) "Most specialists go through this and retire from active duty."

"Is that why you did it a few years ago?" Trip's voice was neutral.

"Yes. I was tired of just killing even before the Bus. Garrett, he didn't object - but he wasn't a killer. I... he... he really liked to hurt people. I abetted him, willingly or not."

Silence fell.

"...It was easier to hate you when you were an arrogant ass," Fitz finally broke it. "When you're not, it's not. I...wanted you to go through what I went, when my brain wasn't working properly, only... Garrett already did this to you. I don't think I hate you now - I pity you instead."

"I can see that," now it was Grant's voice that was carefully neutral. "So now what?"

"Now it's my turn to have a check-up," Jemma said in a faux-perky tone of voice. "Just in case I had picked something up nasty from Whitehall!"

 _TBC_


End file.
